McCaffery: 76ers back to form

PHILADELPHIA — From the tense end of last season to the long-anticipated beginning of this one, the 76ers were judged by their their determination to change. It was in that swirl that their most important offseason decision was lost.

That was their choice not to change one position at all.

Though they’d just been tormented by the postseason point-guard stylings of Boston’s Rajon Rondo, they would become different just about everywhere but at Rondo’s position. They would grow bigger, deeper, more likely to swish a three-pointer. They would end the fight to widen Andre Iguodala’s popularity. They would promise to present more lineup mixes. Yet not only would Jrue Holiday be their point guard again, but even as they were about to open their season with an 84-75 victory over the visiting Denver Nuggets, they were negotiating to keep him around even longer.

To do that, the Sixers would have had to extend his contract before midnight or allow him to become a restricted free agent at season’s end. “I want to be here,” Holiday said before the game. Afterward, owner Josh Harris seemed to feel the same way, though he hardly was swinging his checkbook about the room. Yet it was on the court, where it matters, that the Sixers revealed their tell. There, with a 14-point fourth-quarter lead having been shaved to 71-70, they turned the game over to Holiday. Soon, they would exhale.

“It’s everything,” Doug Collins said. “It’s that guy in the huddle that’s making the calls and the plays when you’re driving to score a touchdown and guys are looking in their eyes and they believe in him. Our guys believe in Jrue. He expended a ton of energy tonight. He played 41 minutes and I had the ball in his hands. He had switches, with big guys on him. He had quicker guys on him. And he had 11 assists, only three turnovers, six rebounds. And he had the play of the game, making a three-point play, stemming the tide.”

With 4:19 left and the Nuggets closing within one, Holiday drove, scored and drew a foul, putting the Sixers up, 74-70. With 3:38 left, he drew the defense to him on a set play and immediately located Spencer Hawes, whose baseline jumper was good for a 78-71 lead. With 2:16 left, his 20-foot jumper reset the lead to nine and proved one thing: He is comfortable with the ball early and most important, late.

“That’s fine,” he said. “That’s kind of what you live for. That’s what Coach wants me to do. He wants me to take control and have the ball in my hands. He gives me the utmost confidence. And that’s what I am going to go out there and do.”

That was the plan, the one muffled by so many other offseason twists. For the Sixers didn’t only keep him as their point guard, they supplemented him only with veteran Royal Ivey and undrafted rookie Maalik Wayns.

“We’re going to make him the quarterback of our team,” said Collins, confirming that at least one franchise on the block has made such a firm decision.

The Nuggets being the Opening Night treat, it didn’t take Collins’ legendary photographic memory to reconstruct an early-season on-court disaster last season. That’s when Denver won, 108-104, with Andre Miller going for 28 and 10, and Ty Lawson 13 and seven.

“If we don’t keep Lawson out of the paint,” Collins said before the game, “we’ll be in for a long night.”

The Sixers tried to win the paintball war early, posting Holiday up against the 5-11 Lawson for a bucket and a free throw. Soon after, Holiday buzzed into the lane, scored over Lawson and completed another three-point play. He would finish with 14 points, 11 assists — and the wish to remain a Sixer.

“I think this group of guys,” Holiday said, the negotiations raging, “definitely motivates me to be here.”